We started the day by going to Richelieu Library. When we reached the place, we made our way into the cinema theatre nearby. We enquired if they showed movies in English and we were somewhat pleased to be told that movies shown here were in English with French subtitles. This came as a surprise because we had been previously informed at another theater that the movies were all in French. Although, we did not purchase any tickets because of time constraint and also there weren’t any movies worth watching at that time. I suppose we were also a bit hesitant to attempt watching another popular Hollywood movie because we watched “The Purge” in Ljubljana and it turned out to be an utter waste of every penny spent. We walked around the place and found a book store. Andrej kept on insisting that he should get me a book. I did not want him to spend any money on me as I felt he had done enough of that already. He already gave me a Slovenian dictionary, Winnie the Pooh in Latin and Le Petit Nicolas. To me, those books spoke more than flowers or any other expensive gifts that men gift to their women. Although, I kept bugging Andrej that he must buy me flowers someday just because I like them and I am into gardening. Books always make me happy and when I get them as gifts from people and gift them to people, they become permanently personal. Because of his persistence, I gave in and settled for Albert Camus’ “The Stranger,” or, “L’Etranger” in original, French. I knew then with two books in French to boost, I had to brush up on my knowledge of French sooner than later. I also found in the bookstore that the French have a comic by the name Josephine. She appeared to be a bespectacled superwoman sort of a character who appeared in different avatars in every series. After we checked out the collection of books in the store, we headed to see the library. The library was a modern building made of glass located in a spacious arena but looked deserted. We were soon to realize that was because the library was closed for the day. We were so disappointed and Andrej felt stupid for not having checked the library timings/schedule beforehand. I told him it was not a big deal and that we must move on to our next destination—Palace of Versailles.
Château de Versailles was a magnificent looking palace spread across a large area with its sprawling gardens, sculptures, rows of trees and cafeterias and a lake which was open to public for boating purposes. The gardens looked like they were taken care of but they weren’t up to the mark as one would expect for a famous historical French palace. There were renovation works taking place at some of the main attractions. As we walked towards the lake, we also noticed that there were modern art works placed awkwardly amongst the aesthetic setting of the original landscape. Andrej and I agreed that the additions looked out of place for a historical site which already looked beautiful as it was. Some of the cafes were closed including the ones housed inside old cottages on the campus but we found an opened restaurant and went in to have some lunch. We ordered for some pizzas. After lunch, we sat under a tree by the lake and read our some more stories from La Petit Nicolas book. I could see people having fun sun bathing and rowing their boats on the lakes. Children especially seem to outnumber adults in all the places we had been to so far. I went to towards the lake and decided to wash off the dirt off my feet since I had been wearing open sandals all day. I dipped my feet in the water and soaked in the sun and the beautiful sight around me. I imagined what an extravagant and pompous lifestyle these French aristocrats would have enjoyed those days. The palace itself was so massive and intricate from the outside that the interiors must have been even more grandiose. As much as I get uncomfortable by such enormous display of wealth by feudal lords and aristocrats knowing how history has proved them to be one of the biggest oppressors of commoners and peasants, I couldn’t help but agree on the beauty of the place. Andrej joined me later at the lake as we both dipped our feet into the waters. At one instance, there was a family of four on a boat that had trouble with their oars. They almost ran into us and apologized in French. There was another Asian family on a boat, a man and three boisterous kids that looked like they were driving the adult passenger up the wall. The man was trying to direct them on how to paddle but the kids seemed to not care and continued to cause commotion on their boat. We thought it was hilarious as we watched them yelling at each other in their language and had a hearty laugh.
After spending an hour or so at Versailles, I told Andrej I loved cemeteries and how peaceful of a place I find them to be. I don’t think he was surprised by this declaration because he sort of already knows how morbid I can get from my obsession with horror movies. I had absolutely no idea about this famous cemetery and was in for a real treat when I got to see the illustrious list of famous people who were buried there from the cemetery map. Père Lachaise Cemetery as it is called was massive in size and from the map one could tell it would take a lot of time to locate each of the tombs we wanted to see. Most of the personalities interred there were French but the cemetery also had personalities from other countries. I told Andrej I wanted to specifically see the graves of Auguste Comte, Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. There were other names that I was familiar with such as Balzac, Proust, and Chopin and I wanted to see them all. But we came to realize that finding one grave in itself took us a long time because of the enormity of the place and it would not be possible to visit them all. As usual, I made Andrej lead the way and figure out the location on the map of the sites I wanted to visit. We first tried to locate Jim Morrison’s tomb, American lead singer of The Doors. I was interested in checking this out because the band happens to be one of my father’s favorites. I thought it would be cool to show a picture and tell him I was there. I could see some youngsters sitting down and smoking in the area and that’s how I assumed that must be it. The tombstone was rather low and small but was gated so we could only take pictures from a distance. Next up was Auguste Comte, the French philosopher/thinker, considered the father of Sociology as well as the founder of the doctrine of Positivism—truth exists only in scientific knowledge. His tomb was all in white and it became somewhat difficult to comprehend the engravings on it. I was not surprised to hear Andrej say “that’s so me,” when he saw the word “Positiviste” on the gravestone, being the Math and logic abiding dude that he is. We walked through the peaceful, winding cobbled paths of the cemetery. There were countless number of beautiful tombstones; some were hauntingly old and dated back to the early 19th century and were intact while others had broken windows and chipped marbles. The dilapidated ones reminded me of the Dracula movies as well as the hoards of classic vampire flicks that I enjoy watching. The cemetery was very well-maintained and looked more like an outdoorsy museum to me. Our last stop was the tomb of the unapologetic “bad boy” of English Literature, Oscar Wilde. I had seen pictures of his tomb earlier in a lit magazine and to know I’m standing by the resting place of one of the most gifted writers in the history of literature and whose works I have admired and loved was so surreal a moment for me. I felt I could hear one of his quotes reverberate through his tomb… “If you’re not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.” We sat by his grave for a few minutes because we got quite exhausted from all the walking. We then took the metro and made our way back to the hotel.
There was an Indian restaurant nearby our hotel and we both agreed to have our meal there. The interiors of the hotel resembled the standard roadside motels or “dhabas” as they are called in India. The brightly painted walls seemed to have drawn inspiration from the Indian national flag with its saffron and green colors. I thought it looked silly but Andrej said it looked pretty good. The waiter was friendly and wished us “bonjour” as showed us our table. I started conversing with him in Hindi after learning he spoke the language. I asked him where he came from and he told me he was a Bangladeshi national who worked in the UK before moving to Paris. He wasn’t fluent in French and informed me that his relatives owned the restaurant. It looked empty and the area did not appear to be a place where tourists would frequent. However, the waiter insisted that they usually had many customers and the French people also enjoyed their food. We had a typical Indian chicken curry, rice and some nan bread. The curry was especially impressive because it tasted very much like the ones I eat in India, unlike the soupy mutton curry Andrej and I had in Ljubljana which in reality is thick and creamy.
We headed back to our hotel room to change our clothes into something less casual. It was a date night or so even though there was no need for calling it such since every night felt like a date night being by ourselves. I wore a black and white crochet/lace skirt and a white top. I knew I could have worn something else instead of a v-neck fitting t-shirt but I didn’t want to appear too dressy so I kept it semi-formal. Andrej felt we should coordinate our wardrobes so he got into grey trousers and a black shirt. I thought this color coordination we were on was cute but cheesy at the same time because that’s what most Korean teenage couples are known for doing. Andrej looked so handsome and he told me I’d get robbed on the metro for looking good tonight. I was looking at us and thinking how awesome we looked together and how convenient it would be to live in the same city so we could get dressed up whenever we felt like. We headed to Montmartre first and took pictures of us together near the Sacre Coeur Cathedral—one with the Cathedral and another with the city of Paris in the background. There were a bunch of hawkers selling beer in the church compound. I found this a bit strange but well, it’s Paris, nothing is out of context. We got a couple of Heinekens for us and sat on a park bench overlooking the city. It was such a pleasant evening and even though the place was bustling with energy and people scattering around the stairway to the church, we felt comfortable in a world of our own on the park bench. Some teenage kids were starting to crowd around us and since Andrej already warned me about thieves and pick-pockets in Paris, I thought I should stay alert. Not that I was thinking they would rob us but I felt they were invading our privacy so we finished our beers and headed up to the church. I was thinking my short skirt could be a cause for concern and I wouldn’t be let into the church but the door was open to all public and there was nobody to check on the dress code. I don’t remember if we sat down to enjoy the tranquility or not but I do remember that when we walked out of the church the wind was blowing hard on my face and the whole of Paris had lit up. What an amazing sight to behold. Andrej was under the impression that they were going to hold a public screening of some movie in the park and we were anticipating it would happen at some point. But after a long wait, we realized he had read the information wrongly or so it seemed. The church is situated on a hilltop and the area around it has different elevations, while climbing down to one street corner, Andrej showed me one spectacular sight. It was the Eiffel Tower, looking brilliant as if it were bejeweled in pink diamonds! I was never so excited about seeing the Tower as I was at this moment. I tried to capture a few shots but most of my camera pictures turned out blurry even after adjusting it to night scene. I desperately wanted to go to the Tower and take a good look at it but Andrej did not pay much attention to my pleas and told me it was nothing special. We walked around the streets of Montmartre a while longer before deciding to go back to our hotel. The entrance/exit doors to the church compound were by now all locked and the only way to get to the main street was the metro service. So we used our metro cards and made our way down.
While sitting on the metro I realized that the route back to our hotel looked different this time around. So far, I had never bothered to check maps or to learn the metro routes by heart. I left that job to Andrej. I knew he knew almost everything and was good with directions, always managing to find his way around and so I left everything in his hands. However, even with being as clueless as I was with the metro route, I could tell something was amiss and we weren’t going towards the station near our hotel. I thought maybe he had some other plan chalked up his sleeve because he never used to reveal the specific names of most places we were to go to. So I didn’t read into it that much. When we got off the metro and climbed up the streets, it immediately hit me as a place I had seen before. My heart jumped with joy. He had brought me to the Eiffel Tower to check out the lights and all this while I thought he wasn’t paying attention to pleading or didn’t care enough to go see the Tower with me again. I was so awfully touched by this gesture that I almost found it impossible to express my joy to him. And to know how non-romantic he is in the typical sense of the term and attempting to do something so thoughtful took me by surprise completely. The vibe of the place, the windy weather, the crowd, the smell of croissant and coffee from the kiosks all under the nose of the gloriously lit Eiffel Tower made it a perfect setting for one of the most romantic night outs of my life. I know, it sounds so maudlin but that’s exactly how I felt. Blame it on the beauteous lights that decorated the Tower and the torch shining from atop that appeared to encircle the city of Paris. Paris is dangerous, dangerous because it can send passion gushing through to your head, and your heart, and without control. I informed Andrej he had earned double points on the scale of 1-10, with the current score at 8.5. He doubled that number for himself. This was our last night in Paris and it couldn't have ended on a better note.
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